Friday, 8 April 2016

not quite your normal game of monopoly.

Changing of the Guard at Horse Guards Parade.

The Planning.

Sometime in January I signed E up to do an explorer* event in London. And promptly forgot all about it. Over the Easter weekend I got an email with details of the event, followed at 11pm on Sunday night by a frantic email from the main explorer leader, requesting parental help. He'd booked the event, but he now couldn't go, and neither could the minibus. He had one leader but would any parents (with DBS checks) be able to drive to London on Friday.... J and I had one of those crazy very very late at night conversations, which went mostly like, "well if we don't go then who will?" Cue frantic collection of camping kit, travel cards, phone chargers, food, extra food, emergency car snacks....

From The Angel of the North to The Angel of Islington and back again.

The journey.It's 313 miles from here to the scout park in north London. although if you don't check properly you think it's 270 miles, and when you realise with 30 miles to go that actually there's 73 miles to go everyone gets a bit tetchy with you. just saying.....J left work early so we left with a car full of explorers at 3pm instead of the scheduled 5pm. Two stops, five sets of road works, some crazy traffic, and 7 hours later we arrived.

The most frequent saying of the whole trip was "Imagine if we'd left at 5 o'clock!!!!!!"

We played eye spy, two letter eye spy (EP - electricity pylon, not elephant poo!) and the A-Z game, themed to the weekend, "I went to the shops and I bought an A-z map of london, Bow Street, Chocolate, Diagon alley, Eager teens, etc" and sang loudly and tunelessly all the way.

It took 7 hours to drive home too......

The Beef Jerky Van. This bright yellow van, always parked at the edge of the A1 is the sign that you're nearly home. Everyone cheers when they see it!

I took lots of photos of the milometer, and lots of photos of the teens (team name Eager teens) at each significant mileage. Blended into a photo film they tell a hilarious story of the journey.

The Game.

Monopoly Run. This year over 900 scouts/leaders/senior section guides and crazy parents raced around London, seeing the sights, earning "£'s" taking photographs and tweeting them. Each team had a list of locations and challenges, you had to visit as many of the locations as possible, some of them at specific timings, answer the location specific question, take a team selfie, and tweet it with the location hashtag (#Trafalgarsquare) and your team number back to head quarters, and rush to the next place. You could do them in any order, more £'s were earned for further away or harder to get to sites, some were genuine monopoly board locations, others were changed in order to make it different each year, and to get a fantastically varied view of London. Team selfies had to be varied and include a variety of poses, and extra £'s were earned for "Chance cards" eg take a photo on a Santander bike, with a member of the public, with a police man, and everyone in your team in a phone box, or "Community Chest" locations, eg The Royal Albert Hall, or a Trafalgar Square Lion. You had 9 hours to visit as many locations as you can, before returning back to "GO" at the campsite. Our explorer group fielded a team of 7 explorers who came 18th out of 142 teams, and J and I and a leader made up an adult team. I learnt that my geographical knowlege of London is dreadful, and that I am much more comfortable navigating with an OS map than with an A-Z and a tube map, that camping in April can be chilly, and that tweeting in a hurry can lead to a) not including the photo, b) not including the hashtag, c) typing the wrong #.... and d) general grumpiness. I also learnt not to use the steps at Covent Garden tube station, that London is a crazy long way to drive, and is filled with far too many people, but is beautiful and inspiring, and has so many more places than I'd ever imagined and we have to go back again next year, and try and visit even more locations.

36 comments:

What an amazing idea - I might just pinch it for our summer manifesto! I really don't envy you the 7 hour drive though. Well done on stepping in at the last minute, it would have been such a shame if they'd had to cancel. Love that last photo. xx

Wow, I feel a bit worn out just thinking about that. You and J are absolute stars for stepping up and doing it. But what a fun experience. A lot of memories made that weekend I think. I'm hoping that this weekend is blissful relaxation for you both! CJ xx

I think our own Explorers went to this event. Not mine, he is too busy with exams this year. Or so he says. How very good of you to go to London to take the place of the leader. Scouts are great. I have four kids, one each with Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Explorers.... Have a restful weekend.

That is so interesting! I would love to do this. You had such a busy weekend but what wonderful memories were made. I didn't know they had Explorers in the UK. Before we had our own children, my husband and I had our own Explorer group, which was focused on engineering. We did circuitry and robot stuff with them. My husband's employer sponsored the groups and we met in their facility. He volunteered to run this particular group and we did it for a few years, until we had our first baby. I'm not an engineer like him, so we split up the duties. He taught the technical things and I did all the equipment and paperwork. I was teaching high school English at the time so it was sort of an extension of daily work for both of us. We really enjoyed it. I hope you're having a good and restful weekend now, Tess. :)

Ah Tess what a fabulous thing to have done last minute, very brave and no doubts incredibly memorable! Looks like a brilliant trip, even if a lot of miles were required, and hope you got some much earned rest this weekend xx

Oh that journey, we had an 18 hr journey to NIreland just the other week when we went over following my Dad's passing, worst journey ever in lots of ways, so I empathise.The monopoly thing sounds fun but I'm exhausted now reading all about it!!Jillxo

I have been volunteering for Explorer Scouts for years, they are hands down my favourite age to volunteer with, such fun! I would love to do this although I have never used Twitter........it sounds like a great weekend. Like you it would be a very long drive to the event but worth it I am sure.

explorers are such a fun age aren't they, I usually help with Rangers, which is the guiding age equivalent, it was fun to hang out with a different group, and it was a fantastic event. I was truly hopeless at the twitter thing!

OhMyGosh -- that sounds like the best time ever! I would love to do something like that. Can I be an explorer parent? Wow -- I hope you had a great time -- I'll be smiling about this all day. Love that last picture!!!

That was very commendable of you and J to step in like that and apart from the few moans and groans and smell feet you mention it sounds like you had a fantastic time. I wouldn't mind doing something like that myself although I'd definitely fail on the handstand part. I've booked one of those escape room things as part of Mark's 50th celebrations and I'm really looking forward to the challenge of that. Doesn't involve any running around either which is even better! xx

That sounds like a brilliant idea for a game and a crazy but fun weekend. You are very brave stepping up to the plate like that, but then I guess often in many different child/school related areas those if not us then who else quandaries push us into things. I feel for you on the April being cold for camping though, I camped out one night in woods mid May and even then woke up freezing around 4.30am! Got to hear an amazing dawn chorus though.

I live near the sea in Northumberland where I drink a lot of tea, bake gluten free cakes, make quilts, and walk on the beach. The rest of the family includes J - understanding hubby, Miss K - 17, and E - 15.